Watching Mad Max 2 recently led me to another early 80s movie with the actor playing the bad guy in it: “Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn.” Sadly, the movie didn’t live up to the world-building of the long title.
This low budget 3D Mad Max knock off also has Scientologist babe Kelly Preston in it. Bull from Night Court too!
Looking at related movies also turned up another (cough) “gem” in 3D called “Spacehunter” with Michael Ironside and Molly Ringwald.
I was too young to have seen these in theatres in their original run but recall them on TV reruns and in VHS rental outlets.
Inexplicably, the third movie after these two was 1997’s Van Damme+Dennis Rodman movie “Double Team.”
I was not too young to see those movies in the theater, in fact as I recall both movies were in 3D which increased their awesome factor by at least 3 or 4 or something.
Double Team is great! They have super-spy gadgets, but instead of a parachute, they have a big basketball that bounces them to safety, because Dennis Rodman.
That’s literally all I remember, but I feel like that’s enough.
If only for Robert Preston, yes. Also it’s an intriguing look at an early-80s attempt to do full-CGI space effects. Oddly appropriate in a way, given that the plot involves a character recruited via a video game.
Also, one of the best villain one-liners ever:
Watching it again, it’s funny how the evil ship blows up when it’s apparently still thousands of miles from that moon. Unless it’s a very small moon. Like, about the size of a football field.
Also, I kind of liked that The Last Starfighter was sort of “baby’s first body horror” for me, there were some scenes that really squicked me out as a youngster.
Wow yeah. I saw it in a theatre too and recall it being excruciatingly bad despite 3D and Molly Ringwald. Even if I was13 and she was a roughly age appropriate crush.
Um, I believe you’re talking about “Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone in 3-D”. Please use the full birth name when talking about this movie.
And to this day, it remains the only movie I have ever walked out of. My friend and I left to play video games in the theater lobby, then went back in time to catch the end. It was an unfortunate combination of a bad movie and bad 3D.
